QSR October 2022

| T H E D R I V E - T H R U M E N U B O A R D | fresh ideas

Digital menuboards are the future at fast casual gusto! And the brand is hardly alone in that directive.

Menuboard Makeover As drive-thrus evolve for a digital age, everything still starts at the ordering point. / B Y B A R N E Y W O L F

A s any quick-service restaurant operator—and customer— knows, drive-thru menuboards come in all sizes, shapes, colors, and capabilities. Increasingly, the emphasis is on the last of those attributes, as devices become more technologically adept and, as a result, pro gressively efficient and effective. Menuboards are better and smarter than ever, whether it is through visual upgrades, with eye-popping animation and colorful digital displays; auditory advances, thanks to speaker and micro phone upgrades; or artificial intelligence developments. “Any innovations in menuboards that I’ve been aware of have to do with technology,” says Tom Cook, principal at King-Casey, a restaurant and foodservice business improvement firm based in

Westport, Connecticut. “[The future] is not in static boards,” he says. A simple way to think about it is in terms of smartphone evolu tion. “First you had flip phones where all you could do was make calls” he explains. “Now, just think about what smartphones can do [as refinements and new options are added every year].” “It’s pretty clear for innovative brands, like ours, that digital boards are the future,” says Nate Nybl, chief executive of burgeon ing Atlanta-area fast casual gusto! The chain will be switching to those boards, featuring “amazing and crispmotion graphics” over the next few years. Technological advances can make a drive-thru experience more natural, but “you have to be careful,” notes Sean Thompson, information technology director at Wichita, CONTINUED AFTER INSERT

GUSTO!

www.qsrmagazine.com | QSR | OCTOBER 2022

15